UN urges Guinea-Bissau to deal 'properly' with drug plane

The United Nations has urged Guinea-Bissau to deal "properly" with the seizure of a jet and its Latin American crew suspected of trafficking drugs, adding that it was monitoring the case closely.

Although no drugs have been found, the world body said it was "concerned" at the jet's presence as diplomats said international narcotics experts were heading to support weak and ill-resourced local law enforcement officers in the tiny nation.

The Gulfstream jet arrived at Bissau airport on July 12 and was immediately seized by the army.

It was one of two planes seized at Bissau's international airport last week.

Officers from the judicial police, which is meant to investigate the drugs trade, were not allowed to search the jet or another plane that ferried technicians to work on it.

Last weekend, the judicial police did, however, arrest the jet's three-man Venezuelan crew and the head of the air traffic control tower at the main airport.

Some of the Latin American smugglers and their local accomplices arrested in seizures in the past have ended up escaping or being freed by a judiciary that analysts say is both weak and corrupt.

Diplomats said on Wednesday that international anti-narcotics agents have flown to Bissau to support the investigations.

Even before it attracted the interests of powerful international drugs networks, Guinea-Bissau has long been a weak and volatile state, prone to coups and military rule.

Latin American cocaine smugglers looking for new routes to Europe have taken advantage of the former Portuguese colony's long, jagged coastline and numerous islands off Africa's west coast to turn the country into a hub of the global trade.

International drug experts say the smugglers are aided by widespread corruption in the impoverished nation and senior officers in the security services facilitate the drug's transit.

"We applaud the first measures taken by the Government such as the seizure of the planes and the detention of some persons and encourage the authorities to handle this issue properly," Shola Omoregiethe head of the UN in Guinea-Bissau said.

"I would like to stress that the United Nations is monitoring very carefully this case and supports Guinea-Bissau in this new battle against drug trafficking and impunity," he added in a statement on Wednesday.

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